Family planning attitudes of women and affecting factors

This descriptive research was conducted to determine the attitudes of women towards family planning and the factors affecting these attitudes.

Universe of the study has been composed of women who are married and older than 15 years and living in Ankara Kale district. 300 women were included. Kale district is a low socioeconomical slum area of the capital city of Turkey. Questionnaire and Family Planning Attitude Scale were used to collect data.

38% of the women were in the 30-39 years age group and 66.7% of them were graduates of primary school. 73.3% of the women had information about some contraceptive method and 53% of them had used an effective method. Mean score taken from the Family Planning Attitude Scale was 120.11±13.8. The scores obtained from the scale were significantly higher in the women who were graduates of elementary school, whose husbands were graduates from high school and higher, who had heard about any contraceptive method and had been using some method and who had had 1-3 pregnancies (p<0.05). Economical status, family type, presence of a chronic disease, using regular medicine and smoking have not affected family planning attitude (p>0.05).

It was found that the attitudes of the women towards family planning were at a good level, nearly half of the women were using an effective method, and the level of education, number of pregnancies, unwillingness to have another child in the future, having information about contraceptive methods and using some contraceptive method had influenced family planning attitudes. In order to turn this attitude into practice with high rate, family planning education programs and consultancy services must be planned and implemented.